Have Spacecat, Will Travel: And Other Tails by John Hartness (best color ebook reader .txt) 📗

of Warrant’s “Cherry Pie” that blared from the cheap sound system. I felt the magic in the music tingle, first in my fingertips, then send a mild electric shock through my whole body. Everything about me tightened as the magic filled me. The hair on my arms stood up, and my nipples perked up against the inside of my sports bra. Not for the first time, I was really glad I have boobs like a twelve-year-old boy. Anything bigger would really be a pain in the ass in my line of work. I wouldn’t wear a bra at all, most days, but when the magic brings the girls to attention, I like to have a modicum of protection from the prying eyes of those around me. I swear, sometimes I think guys have nipple magnets built into their retinas.

I caught the bass line, clicking my fingernails together in time, then spread my fingers wide as the song hit the bridge. My little identifier spell whizzed around the room, unseen to human eyes, but a bright blue-white glow in my vision. It careened off tables, bounced off walls, skimmed the ceiling, and generally danced around the room like Tinkerbelle on a coke bender until it finally came to rest in a far corner of the room, hovering over a couple that had been hidden by shadow until my mystical beacon stopped in midair over the head of the only hot woman in the room, who was performing a very close lap dance on a man who looked like he was about to either come or go blind, or both.

She was stunning, easily the most beautiful person I’d seen in weeks, and I get all kinds trying to use me to get together with one band member or another. Every once in a while I even get hit on, but it’s not the norm. No, usually they’re trying to get with Lily or Jared, either wanting a taste of Lily’s exotic beauty, or wanting to corrupt Jared’s innocent baby-boy good looks. But this chick was something special. She wasn’t some guitar groupie who just wanted a walk on the wild side, she was an eleven out of ten stunner, and she was blowing the mind of the poor nebbishy bastard currently focusing his entire attention on her boy shorts-clad booty.

I locked eyes with the succubus, because there was no way in any of the Hells that this woman wasn’t the demon I was hunting, and she gave me a smile that made me tingle in a whole different way. Her caramel skin glistened with either body glitter, magic, or just old-fashioned sweat, and her long black curls fell almost far enough down her chest to obscure her teardrop breasts. Almost, but not quite. She had legs that went on for days, wrapped in fishnets that led up to a pair of lacy black boy shorts. That was all she wore, just a pair of hose, underwear, and heels that could be classified as deadly weapons. And a smile. Holy mother of Christ, that smile said that it knew every single dirty thought I’d ever had (and there have been a lot of those) and she was willing to help me live them all out, right now, right in the middle of the floor of this nasty-ass strip club in the middle of damn nowhere, Arkansas.

Yep, she was a demon. A seriously powerful one, too, if she could see past my wards and charms. She turned around, bent over at the waist, kissed her nebbish on his forehead, and walked off to a door beside a mountain of humanity that made the doorman look like Peter Dinklage’s stunt double. She put a hand on the arm of the mountain by the door, and he leaned in to her. She motioned toward me, he nodded, and she passed through the door and out of sight. The second I couldn’t see her anymore, the spell was broken and I could think again, mostly clearly.

“She’s something, isn’t she?” a gravelly voice came from behind me.

I jumped and turned to see the bartender staring off where the succubus had vanished, a wistful smile on his face. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that she wasn’t just out of his league, she was out of his dimension, so I just said, “Yeah.”

“You can go on back there and say hello,” he said, gesturing toward the door. “That’s what she was telling Verne, to let you back.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

“Well, there ain’t but two of us over here, and she sure don’t want nothing to do with me!” He let out a chuckle, then his face grew serious. “But be careful back there. Angelica’s hot, but she’s rough on her partners. I’d hate to see you get hurt.” He reached out a hand like he was going to stroke my cheek, but I stood up and moved back.

“I can handle myself.” I walked across the room to the black door, looking up at the behemoth as I approached.

“Second door,” he said, stepping aside to let me pass. I did, trying to figure out exactly what I was going to do with the succubus once I caught her. I’ve got magic, sure, but she was a demon. I know, succubi aren’t like Lords of Hell or anything like that, but they’ve still got some pretty impressive mojo. Maybe I could just shoot her instead. Yeah, that would go great. Just start a shootout in a doublewide strip club. I could see how that would look in the morning papers.

I walked down the surprisingly long hallway, wondering if somebody plopped a Tardis down in the middle of a topless bar, because this place seemed way bigger on the inside. I knocked on the second door, and a sultry voice from inside called, “Come in.” Of course she sounded sexy as hell. She was a lust demon, everything about her was designed to make humans horny.

News flash—it was